Indys Rascals

Firstly i would like to say that some people who work in pet shops are knowledgeable and do a good job.  However with the good comes the bad so i wanted to write a little bit about what can happen when pet shop employees do not know enough about the animals they sell.

I was contacted by a lady who had been to a petshop in the town where i live and bought 5 gerbils from them.  She was told that all 5 were female.  Unfortunately it turned out that in fact 3 were female and two were male.  Well you can imagine the outcome.  All three females gave birth  and unfortunately two of the females turned on the other one and took over her babies and chased her away.  This means that the poor lady who thought she was doing a good turn taking on all 5 from them has ended up with fighting gerbils and a whole load of babies.  I was really angry when i got the email as surely if you work in a petshop the very least you would be expected to do is be able to sex your animals.  I can almost understand it if they were pups but these gerbils were adults and its very easy to tell the difference in adult gerbils. 

For more information on the correct sexing of gerbils – including pictures and a video please visit http://www.egerbil.com/sexing.html

The moral of the story is please ask to check any animals you buy yourself and be extra sure they are of the sex you are wanting.  Please question the employee’s and dont just accept what they say to be true just because they work in an animal based establishment.  

Here you can see the bite marks from the female who was chased away

Here you can see a picture of the pups from the 3 different mums at different ages/stages

Pictures courtesy of Rachel-Louise Foster

Late last night or early this morning someone came into our garden and STOLE a 3 foot glass tank.  This was given to us kindly and was to be used for Star and her 5 babies when they are a bit bigger to give them more room to play.  This theft must have taken some effort as the tank is big and heavy and was half full of water as it was due to be properly cleaned.  The lid was on top as was a filter and heater that came with the tank which we were going to offer on freecycle.  Unfortunately as someone helped themselves to our things this wont happen now.  I think we are going to struggle to get another one of these and im really peed off.  I wish these people no harm other than for the tank to miraculously raise up and come crashing down onto their thieving heads.